https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3a7me/japans-latest-whale-hunt-killed-122-pregnant-females-and-114-juveniles

Japanese vessels killed 333 minke whales in Antarctic waters within the past six months—122 of which were pregnant females and 114 of them juveniles. This move has intensified longstanding debates over Japan’s justifications for whaling in the Southern Ocean in the name of science.

The legality of these hunts is complicated. Though a moratorium on commercial whaling was put in place in 1986, there is some wiggle room allowing countries to kill whales for the purpose of scientific research. A Japanese whaling program known as “JARPA II” used this gray area to kill roughly 1,000 whales every Antarctic summer season. (Norway still kills about this number of whales annually, while Iceland kills around 200).